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Review Summary

The arcane subject of this Japanese documentary, begun by the Japanese filmmaker Shinsuke Ogawa in 1986 and completed after his death by the Chinese documentarist Peng Xiaolian, is the cultivation of red persimmons, a tiny traditional industry that still survives in a handful of villages in Japan's rural north. Surprisingly, it contains few of the contemplative shots of serene Japanese landscapes that one might expect in a film like this. Instead, Mr. Ogawa and Ms. Peng seem almost indifferent to the pictorial splendor of their surroundings, preferring instead to concentrate on the human figures in the foreground. Instead of deploring the intrusion of modernity into a traditional world — the knee-jerk response of so many American films about farming — "Red Persimmons" celebrates technology as a way of imposing human order on a chaotic, recalcitrant world. — Dave Kehr